Survey says: the majority of New West residents are pleased with the services provided by the New Westminster Police Department.
The NWPD hired Ipsos to conduct a citizen satisfaction survey – the first time it’s done a public opinion survey.
“Overall perceptions of the New Westminster police department are positive,” Ipsos director Catherine Knaus told the police board at its Oct. 17 meeting. “Very few residents have anything negative to say about the New Westminster police.”
Knaus said the survey results, however, suggest there's a lack of familiarity with day-to-day police operations. She noted there was a relatively high number of “Don’t Know” responses to some questions.
“That does point to an opportunity for increased public education and engagement,” she said.
Because it wasn’t doing a communications survey, Knaus said Ipsos didn’t delve down into what those communication should look like. She did say there are no strong negative associations or connotations with the police that need to be countered.
“Overall perceptions of the police are positive, so it's not as if the communications are reactively responding to some of those negative messages,” she said. “Instead, it's more about proactively shaping the story you wish to tell about the police. So going through the survey results, and maybe picking out some of the key points that resonate with you or you really want to share with the community.”
Patrick Lalonde, a member of the police board, said the police department’s communications team does a “fantastic job” with social media and community events, but there may be a need to consider different, unique ways to inform the community about its work.
“There was some discussion in our joint meeting with council about the appropriateness of the NWPD's messaging,” he said. “Well, this survey seemed to say that we actually need more of that messaging, that the community's not understanding what the NWPD is doing.”
Chief Const. Dave Jansen said one of the components of the NWPD’s strategic plan is to improve communications, not only for the department but for the police board.
Survey says
A majority of respondents agree the police are effective, when questioned by Ipsos about the NWPD’s resolving crimes where violence is involved and responding quickly to calls for assistance.
One of the questions posed to residents was rating the job police are doing in New Westminster and in Canada. Ipsos found that perceptions of local police are better than those of police as a whole.
“So 64 per cent of New Westminster residents say the police in their area are doing an excellent or a good job. Another 23 per cent say it's an average job and fewer than one in 10, only seven per cent, feel the police are doing a poor/very poor job,” she said. “Compare that to perceptions of police in the country as a whole. Here we have less than half – 44 per cent saying the police are doing an excellent or good job overall, 31 per cent say average, and around two-in-10 say poor or very poor.”
Other questions related to residents’ interactions with police and their experiences with crime in the past two years.
According to Ipsos, most survey respondents are satisfied with their personal safety from crime: 62 per cent are very satisfied or satisfied; 19 per cent are neither satisfied nor dissatisfied; 18 per cent are dissatisfied or very dissatisfied; and one per cent Don’t Know.
“When asked for their perceptions of neighbourhood problems, people using or dealing drugs came out on top, Knaus said. “Forty-seven per cent of respondents said this was a big or moderate problem, 42 per cent said it not a problem at all or a small problem and 12 per cent said they didn’t know.”
Other neighbourhood problems cited by residents included: garbage or litter lying around (32 per cent); people hanging around on the streets (32 per cent); vandalism, graffiti and other deliberate damage to property or vehicles (31 per cent); people being drunk or rowdy in public places (28 per cent); and noisy neighbours or loud parties (11 per cent).
“You have very few – 12 per cent – saying people being attacked or harassed because of their skin colour, ethnic origin, or religion. But it's important to note here that we have 31 per cent, saying they don't know,” Knaus said. “So if this isn't something they've experienced themselves, they are likely not comfortable commenting on the experiences of others.”
Mary Trentadue, a member of the police board, said she’d like future surveys to identify the neighbourhood where residents live. If the survey is going to ask residents about the biggest problem in their neighbourhood, she said it would be useful to know where they live.
About the survey
Ipsos recruited respondents to the online survey through a random mailout to 10,000 randomly-selected households. Between Aug. 8 and 31, 865 New West residents aged 18 and older completed the online survey.
Knaus said the final data was weighted by gender and age to ensure the characteristics of the sample match that of the city’s actual population, as reflected in the most recent census data. Based on the sample size of 865, she said the results have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 per cent 19 times 20.
Jansen said the province established a provincial policing standard, which required police departments to conduct a citizen satisfaction survey every three years that considered attitudes toward police services. He said the questions have to be consistent with Public Safety Canada’s standardized metrics.
Because this survey was the first done by the New Westminster Police Department, Knaus said there was a desire to not stray too far from questions from Public Safety Canada. For future surveys, she suggested the NWPD may want to include a couple of open-ended questions to help shed some more light on why residents are answering the questions the way they do – such as responses to interactions with police and feelings on crime/personal safety issues in New West.
Trentadue questioned if “in the world of surveys” the level of response was considered good.
Hailey Finnigan, the police department’s strategic communications coordinator, said the survey needed a minimum of 500 responses to call the survey results representative of the community, and it heard back from 865 people.
“It was a really good response,” she said.
Diverse voices needed
Trentadue expressed concern that a large number of survey respondents identified as white.
“I'm not excited that 64 per cent of the respondents were white people of a certain age of a certain income,” she said. “I don't think that's representative of our community. … I think that we have to work a bit harder to figure out who's not responding, or why are they not responding.”
Knaus said a computer program was used to randomly select the 10,000 people who received survey invitations. Once those invitations are mailed out to households, she said Ipsos doesn’t have any control over who chooses to respond and not respond.
According to Knaus, the survey was done in English, but there was an attempt to reach out to non-English-speaking individuals by including a line in several languages stating “this was important, and please have it translated”
Trentadue said more efforts will have to be made in the future to get responses from non-English-speaking residents.
“Suggesting that people can arrange their own translations is not going to happen, and I don't think people are going to go to that effort,” she said. “So I think we have to work harder if we want more in depth information about what all of the community thinks, and not just that 64 per cent of white folks.”
